1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital camera and, more particularly, to lens aperture driving.
2. Description of the Related Art
One conventional image capture apparatus drives an aperture using a stepping motor of the 1-2 phase driving type, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-164258.
However, a stepping motor of the 1-2 phase driving type, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-164258 described above, may stop an aperture at a stopped position at which a rotor is unstable due to a cogging torque after the application of a current to the coil is turned off. For this reason, when an aperture is driven using a stepping motor of the 1-2 phase driving type, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-164258 described above, the aperture position shifts by +1 step or −1 step after the application of a current to the coil is turned off, depending on the aperture stopped position. Therefore, to accurately control the aperture, it is necessary to drive the aperture to the control end to compensate for the shift of the stopped position, and then drive it to a desired stopped position.
When the aperture is driven to the control end and then driven to a desired stopped position in this way, the release time lag in the period from when an instruction to execute still image capture is issued until still image capture is actually executed is prolonged.